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Originally Posted by Rudeboyelvis
The CBO says that major changes to current tax or spending policies are necessary “to put the budget on a more sustainable path,” noting that these changes will require “significant trade-offs” between debt-reducing goals and other policy goals.
The CBO continues: “With the population aging and health care costs per person likely to keep growing faster than the economy, the United States cannot sustain the federal spending programs that are now in place with the federal taxes (as a share of GDP) that it has been accustomed to paying. To put the budget on a path that is more likely to be sustainable than if current policies were continued, lawmakers will need to adopt a combination of policies that require people to pay more for their government, accept less in government benefits and services, or both. However, making policy changes that are large enough to shrink the debt relative to the size of the economy — or even to keep the debt from growing — will be a formidable task.”
So just how big is the projected U.S. deficit and debt? According to CBO, the federal debt currently exceeds 70% of the nation’s annual output (gross domestic product, or GDP), a percentage not seen since 1950.
http://www.nacsonline.com/NACS/News/...rc=newsarticle
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the CBO has been saying this for years now. problem is, congress and the executive have done nothing about it. the party members are more interested in catering to their respective constituencies in order to be re-elected. they are not interested in making tough decisions to fix our fiscal problems.
we keep hearing how medicare/caid need 'tweaking'. when will that happen? the age for ss (65) is the same age as when fdr signed the thing into law. it used to be that most people only lived about 18 months past retirement age. now it's over 20 years. but any suggestion that the age be changed is met with outrage bordering on hysteria. if people wish to still retire and draw ss at 65, the amount of money paid in must be commensurate with that plan. also, the amount of quarters one must work hasn't changed. it should also be revamped.
when bush originally placed his 'temporary' tax cuts, the actual tax cut was to the payroll tax. that's the name for social security. so, for years now, we've been paying less than we should into a program that's already broke, with the 'ss lock box' full of iou's. so yeah, brilliant idea to cut the funding that already wasn't enough to sustain the program.